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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



FROM NATURE TO MAN 



BY 



CHARLES CHAMBERS CONNER 



HAMPDEN PUBLISHING COMPANY 

SPRINGFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS 

1910 






Copyright, 1909, 
By Charles C. Conner. 



(g;CU253G30 



TO 
THE DEAR ONE WHO WAS 
COMPANION AND INSPIRATION, 

AND TO 
THE PEOPLE WHO WERE KIND 
WHEN SHE WENT AWAY 
THROUGH THE SHADOW, LOST 
TO OUTER SIGHT AND ABODE, 
BUT NOT TO LIFE AND LOVE. 



PREFACE. 

The title does not mean that man is not 
natural, or not within the realm of the 
generous mother. It is chosen for a few 
studies of nature and life given in a rather 
informal manner as lectures, some of which 
are narrative. The mountain, which is 
the subject of the first, was visited in the 
summer of 1905, and the lecture delivered 
that fall on a Sunday evening was orig- 
inally a letter written just after the moun- 
tain experience to the wife who was in 
the "West, the beginning and ending only 
re-adapted, and is here slightly revised. 
The three which follow were in the autiunn 
of 1907; the others, as a short series of 
general lessons, in 1908, and were among 
the last words of a pastorate with the 
people of Barre. 



CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Mount ^Mansfield - - - - 9 

On Moosilauke - - - - 22 

A Sabbath in Boston - - - 35 

The Evangel op a Week in Barre 47 

Lessons of the Sea - - - 60 

Message of the Mountains - - 72 

Parables of the Plants - - 8-i 



MOUNT MANSFIELD. 

The rain had fallen steadily for two 
or three days when on Tuesday morning, 
August 1, the sun showed his face and 
summoned me to the high hill of Vermont. 
Enough experience had been gained bj^ 
mountain climbing in Massachusetts to 
assure me that the air should be quite 
clear after a spent rain; though the wet 
season was of so long duration that I sus- 
pected the clouds would return as by a 
sort of rebound. "What did it matter! 
They might add to the variety of scenery. 

We take the good with some mixture 
of evil, and cultivate patience by the delay 
of expected fortune. There had been a 
washout south of Montpelier Junction, and 
the train that should bear me with many 
others on errands of business or pleasure 
was forty minutes behind time. But the 
air was a sieve for sunbeams, v/hich came 



10 MOUNT MANSFIELD. 

generously to all who were detained under 
the hospitable sky. A volume of Emerson 
I carried was opened; among the lines 
read was the admonition — 

"See thou bring not to field or stone 
The fancies found in books ; 
Leave authors' eyes and fetch your own 
To brave the landscape's looks." 

The mountain does not surprise us. "VVe 

anticipate by strong suggestions. The 

valley through which we go pays tribute 

to eminent kindred. From Waterbury, 

Camel's Hump is to the left, and Hog 

Back is to the right, and other summits 

with names more classic, but not more 

expressive, are round about us. Mount 

Mansfield might be called the Sleeping 

Giant's Face. Approaching it from Stow'_', 

it appears most nearly like a mammoth 

visage. The upper lip is rather long, but 

indicates firmness all set in stone. As we 

journeyed that day the five miles to the 

base, clouds hung like whiskers about the 

chin. The forehead, nose, and lips were 

clearly defined along the line of sky. 



MOUNT MANSFIELD. 11 

The Stowe side is marked by a circuitous 
road which we trace for five miles more 
among trees and shrubs, ferns and flowers,, 
mosses and lichens. Early we notice good 
sized beech and birch and maple trees. 
Half way up, the spruce and fir grow great 
and munificent in numbers, falling and 
decaying and enriching the declivities that 
wash toward the valleys. On the summit 
all vegetation is dwarf. The same species 
of trees that aspire on the slope become 
little bushes at the top and cling to the 
brow of the mountain. They have seen 
the height and have been shamed into 
humility, as it were ; and for protection 
they hide behind rocks, or creep into 
crevices, and only raise their heads with 
faint assumption. 

We go not there for what the high rocks 
offer to the near-reaching hand, but for 
what they lend to the far-traversing eye. 
We think of it there as Mansfield the Mag- 
nificent. It is indescribable. No brush of 
artist or pen of author can adequately 



12 MOUNT MANSFIELD. 

suggest it. We find that Distance is a 
painter with world-wide fame. Her chief 
color is blue. She puts it deep in the 
heavens, and throws it thick on the far- 
off mountains, and grades it with green 
and gold, colors she finds ready at hand, 
the gift of earth and sun, and her touches 
and blendings are soft and varied infinitely. 
As soon as I might, I gained the Chin — 
it is spelled on a state map in capitals,^ — 
the highest peak. It is a mile and a half 
from the Summit House. When arriving, 
there was no cloud on it. The wish was 
to be vapor-enveloped for awhile there. 
I waited confidently. The white argosies 
were sailing in a horizontal line from me, 
and some below, as if I were looking on 
a spacious sea from an island whose scant 
shore slanted into visible deeps. The view 
here is bounded on the north by Canada, 
on the east by the mountains of New 
Hampshire and Maine, on the west by the 
Adirondacks, and last by the peaks in 
southern Vermont. 



MOUNT MANSFIELD. 13" 

The highest part of Mount Mansfield is 
really in two spurs. Their definition is 
to the north. Going over and down a 
short way, one sees the Lake of the Clouds ; 
a beautiful little lake nestling three thou- 
sand feet above the sea level; a baby body 
of water, pure and sweet, fed by the mes- 
sengers that fly above the running and 
working streams of the world, yet akin to 
them in its high home, and even pleading 
to get down and romp with stream chil- 
dren that go singing toward the sea. 

The first cloud came between the two 
spurs. It was slight, but a herald of what 
was coming after in larger measure. The 
water-carts that wheel overhead and spray 
the earth ran on me and befogged me. 
Huge rakes with teeth of feathers were 
drawn or driven by invisible forces, taking 
impurities of the air, and leaving rock 
and flesh, grass and flower, the cleaner and 
the fresher. The wind was from the north ; 
the cloud vapors hurried along with it; 
they seemed to be trying to catch up with 



14 MOUNT MANSFIELD. 

what had gone before, and there was more 
behind making the same effort. The vapors 
passed, but the cloud lingered. Shut in as 
by thick walls, I sat down and began read- 
ing Emerson's " Adirondacks. " AVhen the 
€nd of the poem had been reached, I looked 
to the north. The wind was parting the 
cloud, cleaving it to get the frame for a 
landscape. He was a deft workman, and 
in a moment put before my eyes a picture, 
four-square and oblong and large, such as 
I had never seen framed. Not satisfied 
seemingly with the workmanship by which 
he had delighted me, he opened many 
vistas to the valleys. 

Having gone below the cloud-line to the 
main ridge, the sun was seen in his western 
roadway slowly moving toward the earth's 
horizon. He called to vespers. The hour 
became sacred; the stillness was awesome. 
The noble mountains, near and far, stood 
ready to join in the litany of the heart. 
All seemed to form one great congregation. 
All were children of one God, and the 



MOUNT MANSFIELD. 15 

mountains the most faithful and steadfast. 
They made no change of creed nor of de- 
nomination. God touched each by his sun- 
shine and surrounded it by his goodness ; 
and each took the ill, the storm which He 
sent, and did not flinch. They were stead- 
fast through every viccissitude. The years 
had come and gone over them, even the 
centuries, and there they still stood, glori- 
fied to the clear vision of an hour, and 
gathering in that span of time the lights 
and the shades which told the human heart 
of relations to realities beyond it. 

The lower peak was climbed to get from 
that the sunset view; but a cloud soon 
drove me down. The west was partly cur- 
tained, and the sun shone through once. 
Mists, flying near, tlien veiled the distance, 
but were so thin and rare at just that 
altitude the eye pierced them toward the 
fields below; the golden light could be 
observed resting on these, until the Master 
withdrew and it, too, was gone. Then, 
again, the air was "cleared of the rack" 



16 MOUNT MANSFIELD. 

to the far horizon. The sun had left a 
stain of red Avhere he had passed as with 
bleeding feet. It was in a strip of sky- 
between the ridge of clouds and the range 
of mountains, and looked like a red lake 
lying beyond Lake Champlain. So kindred 
did sky and earth appear at eventide! 

Darkness began to come over the land 
from the east; on the uncovered piazza of 
the hotel, I watched it. Softly it entered 
where the light had withdrawn; it was 
reverent. Night knelt down beside the 
mountains and worshiped, too, and acknowl- 
edged the one God and Father of all, com- 
mending his care for summit and slope 
and valley and plain alike, and for the 
children who widely dwell on the uneven 
surface of the earth. 

Within the office sat the Roman Catholic 
bishop of Burlington, the only other guest 
for the night. He was smoking his "pipe 
of peace," and reading. He visits Mount 
Mansfield and spends a week each year. I 
had met him on my Avay to the stone pin- 



MOUNT MANSFIELD. 17 

nacles, the chief points of observation. He 
had been to neither that day, but was 
wandering where the strolls were easy. He 
was on familiar ground. Those latter 
hours of the day may have been dim with 
what had been impressed when he and 
others first viewed the scenes. We wear 
away the grass where we walk often. 
Objects are blunted and the senses dulled 
by much contact. God forbid that all his 
blessings should become commonplace ! 
Let him reserve forever unvisited heights ; 
let the feet of his children climb where 
they have not been before ; let him speak 
in that space which is untrodden and fresh, 
and where the ear is held entranced as by 
a new story. 

A partial recital of adventures was 
listened to by the venerable man who took 
a fatherly interest in his companion. I was 
sooner to bed than he, desiring to be awak- 
ened in time to see the sunrise. He lingered 
with another pipeful ; but placed shortly by 
his prayer book and the richly embroidered 



18 MOUNT MANSFIELD. 

tobacco pouch his pipe in open case, that 
he might get it more convenientl.y, perhaps, 
for so were they found. 

There came to me in the early morning 
a rather striking illustration that our 
dreams are very closely related to our 
thoughts and impressions when awake, and 
that a fool sleeps next to the wise man 
one may be. It had been noticed that to 
get the full sunset one must go over some- 
what toward the west from the hotel, for 
this stands slightly to the east of the 
ridge of the mountain, and some shrubby 
evergreen trees grow there. I had asked 
if there was a night clerk to call me at 
the early dawn, and was told that the day 
clerk would regard my wish. I went to 
my room thinking that a peep out of the 
window should not satisfy, since inclosed 
by the walls I could not see over the whole 
landscape the fine effects of light running 
immediately before the oncoming charioteer 
and chasing away the shadows. Previous 
to retiring the curtain was drawn to one 



MOUNT MANSFIELD. 19 

side and the shade raised to the top, that 
the lightened face of the east might look 
fully in. My sleep was imperfect. After 
daybreak I arose and saw by the timepiece 
it was not quite four o'clock. The sun 
would be due about 4.30. I went back to 
bed, and, weary in the lack of refreshing 
sleep, fell into a doze and dreamed of seeing 
the sunrise. I had gotten up uncalled, had 
dressed and passed to the halhvay, where 
the clerk met me and bade me -.valk lightly 
downstairs, which I did — perhaps, that the 
bishop and the attendants at the house 
might not be disturbed. In the office was 
a watchman in companj^ with somebody. 
Pie seemed drowsy with, the belief that it 
was midnight. I tried to pereuade him it 
was not, and made my exit. I turned to the 
east and saw the sun ; it was up as far as 
when seen declining the evening before, but 
now, as before, was soon hidden behind 
clouds. To see it better when it would 
emerge, the path was ascended — which was 
not necessary looking eastward. I turned 



20 MOUNT MxVNSFIELD. 

again; a strange light sliown about some 
trees, which did not appear to be the light 
of the sun, and it was discovered that the 
watchman had attached to me a lantern. 
Provoked at him for giving me a lantern 
to see the sunrise, I awoke. 

But it was the only sunrise witnessed 
there that morning. The mountain was 
covered by a cloud. The liberal rains 
rendered the earth liberal; freely it had 
received, and freely gave back to the sky. 
About half past ten the fog began to lift 
so that the valley might be seen beneath. 
By noon the glory of the landscape, as 
not beheld the day preceding, was spread 
everywhere. 

The descent was made with a small party 
which arrived and left the same day. On 
the road nearing the plain, my dream was 
related to a gentleman who sat by me. A 
lady who was back of us, having given ear, 
remarked, "What our lot lacks in happi- 
ness, the imagination may supply." AVe 
shall find it true everywhere and always 



MOUNT MANSFIELD. 21 

that ourselves are central to our enjoy- 
ments. What we attain in taste and fact 
has power over wood and stone. In a way, 
we are what we want to be. The pleasure 
of hope is as real as that of memory, and 
is larger. We see what is, turn from it, and 
may forget it. We see Avhat might be, fix 
it in mind, and may become or enjoy after 
it. We keep what we transfer by the senses 
to the soul, when the object world is real. 
What we imagine, we have. What we 
enjoy, we know, and none may incline us 
to doubt it. For "as a man thinketh in 
his heart, so is he." 



ON MOOSILAUKE. 

Your thought may be occupied in the 
hour with what a week's respite taught. 
This world is one part solid or fixed, and 
several parts change. There is very little 
about it to us fixed. The surface is nearly 
four-fifths fluid, which is forever ebbing 
and flowing, and the restless sea has dis- 
ciples among the inhabitants of the land 
who are usually moving in some way, and 
in the atmosphere engirting our globe is 
perpetual change. Our life is made up of 
work and rest, of starting and stopping, of 
action and cessation. 

The pastor was disposed to conform to 
the general and manifest order, and left 
the flat lot of daily duty in Vermont for 
the hills and valleys of recreation in New 
Hampshire. As shortly after the conven- 
tion of churches as practicable, he started 
for Mount Moosilauke, of whose fame he 



ON MOOSILAUKE. 23 

had heard as possibly the finest pomt of 
view in New England. The rainy season 
had set in, but he knew it would not last 
ever — he could trust the order of change. 
The days of sunshine were being followed 
by the rain, this to be followed again by 
the sunshine. He went to Warren, and 
thence to Merrill's Mountain Home, which 
is on the slope 1700 feet above the sea. 

Many of the dwellers in the cities be- 
coming, in the summer, visitors at Nature's 
attractive shrines, here were to be found 
some of them. We waited three days for 
the rain to cease ; we tried to be patient, 
for rain was needed. There was oppor- 
tunity to cultivate the acquaintance of our 
fellow-beings and to read. How amiable 
are people when resigned; when sharing 
only their essence. We came very close 
to each other three times, at least, a day 
in that act which has in association the 
augmented meaning of friendship and 
mutual good will. Enemies never eat 
together. They could not remain enemies 



24 ON MOOSILAUKE. 

and do it. About the board of nurture 
the members of a family are bound by the 
strongest ties. It could not have been 
otherwise than that from the most ancient 
times those who broke bread together con- 
sidered that they entered into some com- 
pact of friendship. Across the table from 
me was a young lawyer of Haverhill, Mass.. 
with his wife; to my side sat his father, a 
successful manufacturer of Amesbury, who. 
at the age of about threescore years and 
ten, is an enthusiastic mountain climber, 
and who, in his love of nature that abides 
fresh and fair amid all its changes, is 
keeping young in spirit and sympathy. He 
had come with three sons and their families, 
or "jyith as many of them as might accom- 
pany him, some to stay for two or three 
days, and the remainder of them one week. 
He had been there just thirty years before, 
and returned to renew acquaintance with 
the host, esteemed for his goodness, and 
to introduce the family which had grown 
up about him to the quiet beauty of the 



ON MOOSILAUKE. 25 

place and to the grandeur of the high senti- 
nel of that whole region. 

Among readable books was the "History 
of Warren." It was written by William 
Little, the second person in the town to 
graduate from Dartmouth college, and in 
looking at the long list of Dartmo^^th grad- 
uates which followed, one is impressed that 
those w^ho went first were exemplary and 
influential, or that the college had done 
well by its sons, or that the people of the 
town were loyal to an institution of the 
state, or that these were all happily com- 
bined. Warren is favored above the ordi- 
nary in its historian. Dulness does not 
droop on any of his pages, to which my 
leisure may have lent a degree of interest. 
The reader, however, usually gets out of a 
story what the author puts into it. In 
annals of a neighborhood something de- 
pends, of course, upon the array of avail- 
able facts; but these were so handled and 
illuminated as to give to the book the charm 
of literature. 



26 ON MOOSILAUKE. 

Inquiry as to the meaning of "Moosi- 
lauke" had nnshelved the history. No one 
who was asked knew what the word meant 
further than that it was an Indian name. 
It has been written or printed in three 
different forms. But as found now on the 
maps, it is derived from two native Indian 
words, moosi, bald, and auke, place — * ' Bald 
place." The name still suits the barren 
summit. It was for a long time called 
about AVarren " Moosehillock, " and is so 
referred to throughout the history of the 
town ; this was doubtless because of the 
suggestion of the earlier name, which has 
become the later, and also because numbers 
of moose were found there. The last moosci 
was shot in the region years ago, but bears 
are yet tracked and seen there, not in great 
numbers, to be sure, but an occasional one 
nearly every year to the present. On the 
ample sides of the mountain are Nature's 
wilds, and they afford welcome in their 
fastnesses to such of her rude children as 
seek refuge from the open signs of civiliza- 



ON MOOSILAUKE. 27 

tion, with which men and women in most 
of the months of the year associate and 
feel at home. 

On Friday morning early I looked out of 
the window which opened toward the 
mountain, and saw the Tip Top House, 
as it had not been seen for several days, 
standing clearly against the sky. From 
under the roof which had sheltered us when 
the storm was spending its substance, we 
might see the neighboring peaks to the 
south. Their faces had been thickly veiled 
by the clouds which had been also down 
on us. Their positions were learned. No 
introduction was needed when they once 
appeared. Circling away from Moosilauke 
were Waternomee, Cushman, Kineo, and 
Carr, nearly all of them considerably over 
three thousand feet above the sea, but not 
seeming so high from an elevation of almost 
two thousand feet. Apparent greatiiess is 
always relative. We judge things and per- 
sons, as well, from where we are. Yet 
these must be that we may discern them.. 



28 ON MOOSILAUKE. 

The mountains were rock-ribbed realities. 
The mists and rains had only hidden them 
for a time. They would stand with their 
names when the clouds passed off. We 
knew just where to look for them, as their 
abiding order had been rehearsed to us. 
And after I turned toward the higher sum- 
mit that morning they told me across the 
space, in their own tongue, as I sat down 
to become their amanuensis or translator, 
that I might meet and know in the world 
the mountain character, that there were 
Waternomees, and Cushmans, and Kineos, 
and Carrs, as daily neighbors among men. 
Their faces might be sometimes out of our 
sight, even the mists and rains of personal 
rsorrow might hide them for a time from 
us, but we should know where we could 
find them when the mists had rolled away. 
They were, and are, steadfast as to a per- 
ceived and acknowledged duty. We are 
forbidden to doubt them. There are some 
who, when not at church at the hour we 
are summoned here, have a reason for not 



ON MOOSILAUKE. 29' 

being here. We may know this by our 
knowledge of them. We know that they 
are to be thoroughly relied upon to do their 
part toward the community, and toward 
the church which gathers in itself and dis- 
penses a possible good of the community. 

A road led upward where the summit 
invited. It was zigzag by choice and neces- 
sity. It could be trusted in even its crook- 
edness. It is thus unlike a human being. 
We confide in a man who is straight. But 
we shall discover that a path in the forest, 
however winding, always leads where others 
have gone before for what they thought a 
good. That rather smooth road should not 
have been made up the rugged mountain 
side, if the love of our kind for what is 
noble, or grand, or inspiring to its sight, 
had not led the way. 'Never doubt a 
path, ' was a lesson of the slope. 

As I ascended and got glimpses looking 
back through the openings, a fear was 
indulged that it had cleared too warm. 
The mists were rising ; the distant view was 



"30 ON MOOSILAUKE. 

becoming hazy. And half way on the road, 
a strong fear overtook me that a cloud 
would be bothersome at the top. Starting 
with my feet on the ground, I walked up 
into a cloud. It was nearly four miles 
there. More than a mile must yet be 
traveled before the Tip Top House would 
be reached. 

There was a spring ahead, which is 
specially mentioned in the local history, 
and of whose clear, refreshful water I 
should drink. The height is cool while the 
lowland is warm, and that water is almost 
ice-cold. The climate changes on the way. 
To journey the five miles from the haunts 
of men below is to go from New England 
to Labrador. Vegetation changes; the 
birds are different from those in the valley. 
In the register at the house on the summit 
was noted the temperature of each day. 
On August 28, it was 35° or near to 
freezing ; for some days after in succession, 
it was 36°. That may be unusually low 
for summer, but there were the figures 



ON MOOSILAUKE. 31 

which the mercury had authorized, and the 
overcoats and wraps which we wanted for 
comfort confirmed their story. 

Providence has made a kind of Labrador 
of the upper air for the benefit of the earth. 
The aerial mists that rise, almost imper- 
ceptibly to us, are condensed by the cold 
into clouds, and by more cold into rain 
which waters and makes fruitful the 
ground. Otherwise they should float away 
into warm and open space with the sweet 
persuasions of the sun, and might forget 
altogether to return, leaving the land to 
become dry and baked. The cool air cages 
the mists, and the winds open the wickets 
for them to fly forth visibly on their 
errands of mercy over all the earth. 

The clouds rose somewhat before noon 
and disclosed the valley on either side. 
The effect is inexpressibly beautiful, always 
offering itself as a surprise, with the con- 
trasts of the fleeting vapors above and the 
sun-illumined land below, studded with 
farm houses and towns and cities on staid 



32 ON MOOSILAUKE. 

foundations : an interesting and fascinat- 
ing survey. In the early afternoon the few 
of us were shown still more. Many moun- 
tains on every side within a radius of thirty 
or forty miles lifted their heads proudly 
in the air. They were defying change, and 
yet change had been creeping over them, 
not to destroy, but to beautify them. 
Strength and beauty are in the spacious 
sanctuary of the Infinite. 

The vision of what was so vast and 
grand, bounded only by the hazy distance, 
lasted but for forty-tive or fifty minutes. 
The cloud came about ^^s. Our eyes were 
held as prisoners behind dense barriers. 
The darkness fell and told us the day was 
done. With the dawn of another, sight 
might be free and have range to meet and 
greet fellow peaks in the new glory of the 
sun. The wind was blowing from the west 
at the rate of eighty miles an hour, we 
supposed, by the roaring, and the whistling, 
and the sweeping of it which we had to 
resist outside the solid walls of the build- 



ON MOOSILAUKE. 33 

ing. But the dawn discovered the cloud 
which had not passed oft' at night. The 
factory was running twenty-four hours to 
the day — full time. As fast as made, the 
wind would unwind cloud from the huge 
staff and dispense it ; but as fast as the 
wind could take it the cool air was making 
it. How far it came we might not know. 
The supply was doubtless near at hand. 

Disappointed to an extent, I began to 
descend, having a limited time for the 
height with a thought of something else- 
where ahead to gain by the paved street 
of man's concurrence in the hours with 
man. Others had been disappointed before 
and should be after. We share in the good 
and the evil apportioned to all. I walked 
exceeding a mile down, as I had come up, 
in a cloud, and am thankful that there 
is more of sunshine over the low places 
where our daily work is to be done than 
on the far-away heights which we visit 
rarely. Providence "tempers the wind to 
the shorn lamb. ' ' He sets our work in the 



34 ON MOOSILAUKE. 

midst of his mercies, and a special blessing 
may be upon it, if we bring spirit and fit- 
ness to it by the ways wherein generations 
before ns, with schools and churches as 
guide posts, lead and direct us. 



A SABBATH IN BOSTON. 

I had said to my neighbor across the 
dining table Thursday, that I expected to 
attend church three times Sunday. He 
remarked inquiringly, "For the fun of 
it?" He was answered, "For the good of 
it." His wife questioned at once, "For 
information?" And she was told, "For 
inspiration." I believe that church going 
is less and less for information or instruc- 
tion, and more and more for inspiration and 
help, for abundant and better life. 

It is patent that one has awakened in 
the age of the electric car and automobile 
when he goes upon the street at nine 
o'clock or after, Sunday morning, in the 
neighborhood of Copley Square where I 
stayed during the night; for that locality 
is doubtless not different from many others. 
The horse which was first bridled by man 
is now used for the drudgery and drive 



36 A SABBATH IN BOSTON. 

of the short distance, and comparatively 
little for the drive, since the ambition of 
man runs far and fast, and he wants that 
his body should keep pace and not be a 
laggard where his kind has set a fashion. 
While the street cars were following the 
tracks laid for them, the automobiles were 
darting in almost every direction. Early 
there was seldom more than one person in 
even a touring car ; the chauffeur, in nearly 
every case, seemed to be loosening up the 
machine for the demands of a family or 
party, and later one alone was rare. That 
disposition of man to share with the social 
impulse was in the open air, and had only 
slept and breakfasted within walls. Far- 
ther in the city, numbers in the convey- 
ances meant for sight-seeing, and crowds 
on the corners, many provided with lunch 
baskets, awaiting the electrics, were much 
in evidence. 

The facilities for transit tempt the peo- 
ple strongly on the Sabbath. One of the 
Ten Commandments may need fortifying 



A SABBATH IN BOSTON. 37 

in our time, as there is continued need of 
rest or quiet. A simple prohibition of 
labor does not reach the general case today. 
Men must find and furnish their spiritual 
selves. The integrity of body and soul to- 
gether must be domesticated and nurtured. 
Each of us ought to sit down, at least, 
on one day in the week, and listen for the 
voice of- God who has a throne among us. 
It will not be heard on a run, nor in a 
whizz. And we should fear that the next- 
to-incessant going of the people will have 
a sorry effect in character: in a lack of 
stability, and of reliability, and of devo- 
tion to interests that are supreme over 
those of any individual. The divine in us 
takes counsel of the divine above us, which 
relates all by a love and consideration 
both comprehensive and advisory. By law 
and care of God man learns to live in him- 
self and to act toward fellowmen. 

The historic Park Street church was 
attended in the morning. Dr. Conrad, 



38 A SABBATH IN BOSTON. 

lately called as pastor, I had not heard. 
The kindest treatment was received there 
by the woman who has made, in plain 
dress, a tour of the churches of some of 
the principal cities. At the inner door 
one is met by a cordiality in the person of 
more than one, which thus outnumbers 
him, and which again hands him on to a 
graciousness leading well forward. It was 
the minister's first Sunday after vacation. 
All the people were not yet back ; transient 
worshipers took to an extent their seats 
if not their places. There was a special 
order for the communion, and the short 
sermon was a sacramental meditation on 
' ' Love Measured in Terms of Life. ' ' While 
the service proceeded, the hoarse horn of 
the horseless carriage was heard once and 
again from the street. But a voice called 
U.S away and up a spiritual elevation where 
the discordant noises of the world no longer 
disturbed ; we were shown the plains of 
daily living where we should go for the 
love of those who are neighbors and who 



- A SABBATH IN BOSTON. 39 

need us; and duty was inviting along the 
Christian ways which lead to the blessing 
of all men. 

After the communion, to which about all 
stayed, I passed out to the Common, a 
corner of which adjoins, and a little ahead 
pigeons and sparrows were flying forward 
in happy flocks. As they ate up a be- 
stowment of food, they flew on to over- 
take the kind gentleman who was dropping 
crumbs for them while he walked along. 
His supply was limited, but such as he had 
he gave. Coming to his side, he told me 
he fed the birds because they sometimes 
fed him, and I more than half suspected 
that the bread he had was left from a 
communion table, and am sure that the 
Lord who spoke on earth so tenderly of 
the birds would sanction the use that was 
thus made of the leavings of a memorial 
sacred to him. 

In the Public Gardens, separated from 
the Common by only a street, two men were 
met arguing some point. One seemed to 



40 A SABBATH IN BOSTON. 

be trying to make himself understood by 
the other who seemed equally anxious to 
set himself right in the opinion of his com- 
panion. It came to me that he who had 
been feeding the birds was doing more 
good than they both. And I sat awhile 
after in the Art Museum before the picture 
of Elihu Vedder, wherein the artist has 
put a pilgrim with his ear to the lips of 
the sphinx, which is so sand-embedded by 
the centuries that he must stoop to bring 
the ear to the mouth of the mammoth and 
once-towering image, while a little below, 
or to the side of him, by a stone that serves 
as a step for the living, is the skull of 
another who had died in the desert place, 
and which marks the fate of each and 
everyone who would linger there for the 
delivery to him of an opinion. No grass 
grows at the foot of an opinion; no trees 
send up their branches like fresh sprays 
in the air; no birds come with their min- 
strelsy to sing, or to charm the hearts of 
those who should feed them ; no youths and 



A S^VBBATH IN BOSTON. 41 

maidens are drawn to each other to dream 
together of a future roseate with promise 
and hope ; no sweet sounds of life fill the 
souls which are made to receive and to give 
love and good : only rock and dry sand 
and barrenness stretching therefrom every- 
where. 

The dome of a temple-like structure can 
be seen looking southwest from the bridge 
on Huntington avenue above the railway 
tracks. I walked out to it in the early 
morning to assure me that it is the 
Christian Science church, and to go there 
later without doubt or delay. It is a won- 
derful pile of stones and inscriptions, testi- 
fying to the devotion of a people to their 
leader. The order of the afternoon is a 
repetition of the forenoon in the same great 
room. If any of the devotees cannot be 
present at their shrine in the morning, they 
may come at 3 o'clock, and strangers, who 
would go first elsewhere, may come like- 
wise at that open hour in an open day. 
The morning had been fair, but the after- 



42 A SABBATH IN BOSTON. 

noon became somewhat foul. We could 
have gone without umbrellas and not been 
inconvenienced, but, having one, I raised 
it for the last part of the walk. The 
congregation was accommodated by about 
one-seventh of the seating capacity; that 
is, this w^as about six-sevenths empty. 
However, it was a large audience for an 
ordinary sized room. After the service, I 
questioned if that number might gather 
on a much fairer day at the same place 
and hour a few years later. But we notice, 
as we enter at intervals the room in the 
Boston Public Library, which has around 
its walls the pictures of Abbey illustrating 
Sir Galahad's venture for the Holy Grail, 
that visitors are constantly there scanning 
the illuminated spaces with the printed 
helps in hand. The great church is some- 
thing to go to see. Some arrived that day 
just after 4 o'clock to see it. 

The service is both unique and uninter- 
esting in its main features. The first 
reader is merely a repeater for an elderly 



' A SABBATH IN BOSTON. 43 

woman. As the reading begins and ad- 
vances, it is felt that the building is too 
large for one man or woman. The voice 
does not well fill it, and there is an echo 
in a coarser tone which may have a signifi- 
cance. It obtrudes that the object is to get 
an opinion from a book into the minds of 
men and women. The letter of the book 
is followed. No original thought or impulse 
rises there ; no living spirit may crave 
fresh forms and have its prayer answered 
at the Sabbath appointments. It is all as 
dictated by the head, and predetermined in 
print for a quarter of a year, or, in exact 
phrase, "cut and dried." The whole 
should have been very dreary without the 
hymns which were richly intoned by the 
grand organ and finely led by a trained 
singer. The attention to the readings from 
"Science and Health" was generally list- 
less. An usher on the first floor went fully 
to sleep, and was aroused by another in 
time to join in the taking of the offering 
near the close, when thirty men in Prince 



44 A SABBATH IN BOSTON. 

Albert coats with white chrysanthemums 
at the lapels, and with drab gloves, get 
busy in the main aisles and among the 
seats of the galleries, or such as are sparsely 
occupied. When Mrs. Eddy's interpreta- 
tions of the Scriptures were being set forth, 
the usher that had shown me to a seat with 
a scant dozen in a gallery, took comforting 
siestas, alternating sleeping and waking, 
which my very recent experience on Mt. 
Moosilauke enabled me to appreciate. I 
did not want to miss there the sunrise, and 
had charged myself with the responsibility 
of getting up for it, and I frequently awoke 
through the night after short slumber. 
This man alone as an usher had charged 
himself with the responsibility of that 
collection at the close, and so refrained 
from other than short naps. On the field 
of battle, he might be a hero to duty, and 
with the interests of the business of the 
days, I believe, he keeps alert from dawn 
to dark. 



A SABBATH IN BOSTON. 45 

At night, I went to the near-by Old 
South church, that in which Dr. Gordon 
ministers, and from which I had departed 
on a New Year's night, some time ago, 
resolved more earnestly through the influ- 
ence of the treatment of the preacher's 
theme to be consecrated to worthy ideals, 
so far as God gave me power, and to make 
life a better service to man. The assistant 
pastor was here last to conduct the devo- 
tions and to preach. The congregation 
came in the comparatively small chapel, 
and fairly filled it. The evening rites were 
marred to me, and to others, I think, by 
the choir, which, in the corner to the side 
of the lectern, sang sweetly, but, when at 
rest, behaved irreverently. 

A stranger lingered a little while among 
the pews that evening as the people with- 
drew. After nearly all had gone, he saw 
an elderly gentleman standing in the vesti- 
bule, who seemed to belong in the church, 
and might be one of the spiritual pillars 
of it. When about to leave, he paused 



46 A SABBATH IN BOSTON. 

and said to him, ' ' The sermon to which we 
have listened had for us helpful thoughts. 
But the choir perform in two manners, 
and ought to sit where they could not be 
seen." The curt speech was w^ell received 
by the audience of one, and the stranger 
within the gates went away bearing a bene- 
diction given after that of the preacher, 
and pondered familiar words which applied 
to him and others besides — "Whosoever 
thou art that enterest this church, leave it 
not without one prayer for thyself, for 
those who minister, and those who worship 
here. ' ' 

Reverence is due unto the Lord. It is 
the standard coin of his kingdom, and 
should be the offering of everyone in his 
house. 



THE EVANGEL OF A WEEK IN 
BARRE. 

What message has a week in our cir- 
cumscribed lot? The city which was here 
seven days ago is to the on-looker here 
today virtually the same. Some moved 
out, but others moved in ; some died, but 
others were born. Barre is founded upon 
rock — upon the granite in the hills, and 
is exalted above them, or made superior 
to them by the willingness and ability to 
utilize natural favors. 

A primary thing we are taught is de- 
pendence upon the providence of God. 
Every day mankind is dependent upon the 
common blessings of earth, air, food, water ; 
every individual is dependent upon some 
gift within and favor without for his suc- 
cessful life career; and so every town or 
city is dependent upon what God has given, 
in the development and achievements by 



48 THE EVANGEL OF A WEEK IN BARRE. 

which it may be distinguished. I have been 
reminded of two villages on opposite sides 
of the Mississippi river, which, something 
more than fifty years ago, were rivals. La 
Crescent in Minnesota had ample bottom 
land over which to spread; but it was 
opportunity without favor. La Crosse in 
Wisconsin was built on a barren plain 
running back about three miles to high 
bluffs, and in the sandy desert at its feet 
not much but sand-burs grew, while the 
few citizens despaired of getting other than 
Cottonwood trees to flourish as street orna- 
ments. But the Black river flowed into 
the Mississippi just above; down its cur- 
rent could be brought immense rafts of 
logs from the wide timber areas through 
which it came; great sawmills were set 
on its banks and along the Mississippi be- 
low, about which a city with its many and 
varied interests grew up ; and when there 
was celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of 
the founding of the place, a city of thirty 
thousand, the second in size in the state, 



THE EVANGEL OP A WEEK IN BARRE. 49 

La Crescent was a little village still of 
hardly two hundred inhabitants. He that 
went about the streets and spaces last week 
could observe long stone sheds which had 
been newly reared, and were being occupied 
with the scores of others stretching up and 
down this branch of the "VVinooski ; large 
blocks of business rising mostly in brick; 
commodious and pleasant homes climbing 
over the hills ; and the central library build- 
ing approaching completion, which will 
stand with the public edifices as an index 
and promise of culture and attainments 
more covetable than material thrift and 
comforts. And it is all because the handi- 
work of God reposed in the hills here 
awaiting discoveiy and utilization. So let 
no one boast of what he achieves ; let him 
be grateful that he has been favored, and 
modest since without favor he might have 
been as the least. Beyond this city 's streets 
lie the cemeteries of the broad land, into 
about all of which go monuments from 
these quarries, made by skillful workmen, 



50 THE EVANGEL OF A WEEK IN BARRE. ' 

and demanded by that sentiment of the 
living which would honor the dead. 

Another primary thing taught is that 
man must work if he would happily live; 
and he must work that any may be honored 
in death. "Work is not only for bread or 
body, but for character which is fed and 
strengthened and safeguarded by it. Two 
pastors stood on a sidewalk one evening 
conversing ere they parted for their re- 
spective homes ; he who was the later comer 
remarked that Barre compares well in 
morals with cities generally, and is better 
than many, because the people are nearly 
all busy. They are doing something sub- 
stantially for themselves, and at the same 
time are serving the whole. The idle classes 
are to be feared anywhere. To the extent 
that they are drawn to a place by any 
means whatsoever, they are dangerous, 
while worthless. 

The pleasures of a community, we are 
admonished, should be found not far from 
the homes, and there should be no intem- 



THE EVANGEL OF A WEEK IN BARRE. 51 

perance. Recreation will be on the play- 
ground where the return to work may be 
direct and easy. That which will nurture, 
that which will render work more welcome 
and efficient, we are to take every day. 
There is pleasure in nurture ; it is prophetic 
of pleasure in work, and of pleasure in 
life. Be not a slave to thy throat. The 
master is he who chooses what may serve 
him, and his joy is ascendant in a soul that 
rises among the things the hands create or 
do. I was for some moments one day at the 
door of a tool-maker's shop talking with 
the proprietor, and the conversation turned 
toward a sad case, a victim of the drink 
habit; he said that after a boy, the gift 
of God, came into his home seventeen years 
past, he had drunk not a drop of anything 
intoxicating, that he resolved it should not 
be said the father of that boy is a drunkard. 
His home is on one of the upward slopes, 
and his business and home together help to 
make the pleasing picture of a city's pros- 
perity and happiness. 



52 THE EVANGEL OF A WEEK EST BARRE. 

How much is comprehended in a week ! 
All the joys and all the sorrows of our 
kind have place together there. It is full 
of what we find, or bring to it. We sym- 
pathize most with sorrow, with those ia 
sickness and pain. However, men and 
women on the same streets may receive the 
visitation of Providence in dissimilar ways. 
Two pigeons were seen from a window 
sitting on the eaves trough of a neighbor- 
ing building when it rained. They were 
side by side. One was slender and appar- 
ently weak; the other was full of life and 
strong. The numerously descending drops 
beat upon one as a misfortune: it shrank 
with downcast head, and seemed to reduce 
itself that there might be little for the 
storm to batter; the other rounded out its 
breast and disposed with the beak its 
feathers, while the rain fell over it as a 
grace, and when the beak was sheathed 
with the resting wing there was an air of 
content touching every feather's point 



THE EVANGEL OF A WEEK IN BARRE 53 

which softly penciled its body. So two 
persons may be differently affected by ex- 
ternal circumstances. If there is lack of 
faith, one will cringe by adversity ; if there 
is fulness of faith, the good of life shall 
be realized in even the rainy day. And a 
scripture saith, "All things work together 
for good to them that love God." But 
there was another bird with resignation 
under the storm which had shelter from 
the worst. There was again one disquieted 
by hard exposure. It is sometimes a differ- 
ence in position, and not alone in behavior. 
The body of one seems all exposed to the 
shafts of ill ; there is no hope left for earth, 
except that of surcease of pain. Yet, ''dust 
to dust" being not written of the soul, 
the good that God would give may be put 
in larger measure when the body dissolves. 
More than once have I repeated for myself 
and others those words of Whittier — in 
what poem they are to be found, I have 
forgotten — 



54 THE EVANGEL OP A WEEK IN BARRE, 

"That suffering is not his revenge 
Upon his creatures weak and frail, 
Sent on a pathway new and strange, 
With feet that wander and with eyes that fail ; 

"That, o'er the crucible of pain, 

Watches the tender eye of Love 
■ The slow transmuting of the chain 

Whose links are iron below to gold above." 

Almost or quite in the presence of those 
who suffer and depart, finding the peace 
and the rest they crave, are those who 
come in childhood to enjoy and to count 
the days and years of life, on the whole, 
blessed. On five days of the week they 
hasten toward the school houses which 
adorn the city's highways. One afternoon, 
I watched the boys and girls go to the 
near-by school. The lawns of the churches 
and the park gave them range in which to 
play. The majority came early and had a 
lot of time for the things they much en- 
joyed — very like ourselves. The spirit of 
play ran everywhere, because it was every- 
where: it was over the shoe-tops; it burst 
out of the sleeves ; there was enough to rise 
to the collars and to the hats, and took 



THE EVANGEL OF A WEEK IN BARRE. OD 

these at times as by a gust of wind. Many 
things were enacted in a quarter of an 
hour, from children at play, pure and 
simple, to the arrest of an assumedly guilty 
one by mimic officers of the law. The 
imagination of the children was equal to 
a whole community in mature life and 
action, and the beholder might see in his 
fancy the peopling of, at least, a small 
town. The surplus energy, the time it took 
for its ends full in view, especially im- 
pressed him who reflected that men and 
women, followers of boys and girls in the 
years, should aim to keep reserves of 
energy. They should not tire themselves 
out on any day or week. They should have 
their work ahead of them, as children their 
play. While thinking of it, a boy appeared 
who was tardy. The masses had moved 
forward to school, and were out of sight. 
The boy ran alone and hurried. Something 
had detained him; maybe, he had loitered, 
lie was not happy as he passed ; he was not 
free in the mood natural to childhood. His 



56 THE EVANGEL OF A WEEK IN BARRE. 

was an ungraceful procedure. He had 
gotten behind with himself, and was on a 
strain to catch up with his race. 

About 4 o'clock, I happened to be in 
the neighborhood of the stone sheds to the 
north, and before the whistles blew for 
quitting men were beginning to file along in 
the roadways hastening off. Their watches 
may have been fast, or, peradventure, their 
thought of quitting was fast. At a little 
shed near the car tracks two or three 
worked on. It was unlikely that love for 
their tasks was the cause of their continu- 
ance. Inquiry of one brought answer, 
which was hardly information, that he was 
expected to work until 5 o'clock. Perhaps, 
the men were following, in heart, the boys. 
They liked a respite. 

So he that worked and early ran away 
Might come to work his best another day 

— in practical parody of an old couplet. 
They were justified in leaving the grind 
and the dust for the balance of the after- 
noon ; for the lawn-keeping, or the garden- 



THE EVANGEL OF A WEEK EST BARRE. 57 

gathering, or to join awhile in the play at 
home. 

When the men stopped, the toil of as 
many continued. In a Cambridge com- 
mencement poem, the early part of the 
eighteenth century, Mr. Eusden wrote, 

"A woman's work, grave sirs, is never done." 
Some men may consider themselves as in 
the category of woman, having work always 
to do. I think, however, that men quite 
generally must confess to a superior faith- 
fulness and devotion to the fine interests o£ 
life in the home. Such a confession should 
be good for their souls in relation to home 
itself, to church, and to business. We can 
learn devotion in a right wide way from 
woman, and practice at her side. As the 
pastor went among his people in the week, 
every day but two, desiring to see all to 
whom a word of greeting or of cheer from 
him might be welcome, but, in limitations 
against which each man beats as with a 
broken bar of time, could only go where 
he felt duty was urgent, he remembered 



58 THE EVANGEL OP A WEEK IN BARRE. 

that one in yonder home was ill, one down 
there was detained by a little babe, another 
by the care of a number of children, and 
so on, and accepted unexpressed excuses for 
some not being at church in the hours 
appointed. Rarely was there an excuse for 
the man of a household. And yet the con- 
gregations of the churches have women in 
majorities. 

The function of Friday evening in the 
vestry reminds us of the kinship of church 
and school — the reception to the teachers 
and students of the seminary by the people 
of the parish. Rev. Franklin S. Bliss, of 
sainted memory, was the pastor here when 
Goddard seminary was founded. He felt 
that the coming of the school increased the 
responsibility of the church, and said that, 
as for himself, he should accept upon his 
knees the added responsibility. It was 
denominational, in part. It is more in 
the interest that should cross to and fro 
the space between. The church puts the 
emphasis on moral character; the school 



THE EVANGEL OF A WEEK IN BARRE. 59 

on the intellectual. Yet they might meet 
in both. The class room teaches and fosters 
faithfulness to duty; the pulpit addresses 
the intellect, and promotes character by 
truth. In all good ways above the inter- 
vening streets the two should be brought 
and kept close together. "We may kneel 
with a sense of obligation. We can stand 
upon our feet and move likewise. We may 
rest in the church for returns of strength ; 
but we should not recline where duty bids 
us act with a memory of noble examples ; 
and a recessional whose lines would run 
nearer to our robing rooms than Kipling's, 
even across the thresholds, might be com- 
mitted to heart, 

"Lest we forget, lest we forget." 



LESSONS OF THE SEA. 

Nature is the eldest and latest book of 
God. It is so popular, or of such exceeding 
use, that new and fresh editions of it are 
being continually issued. All minds have 
learned from it, especially prophet and poet 
and religious teacher. Jesus drew parables 
from the living, growing things around 
him, and enforced the lessons. 

The facts of the world have a certain 
sovereignty over us. Our thoughts and 
convictions and plans of life take shape 
from them. We must wait upon them and 
get counsel; we must sometimes wait for 
them, when without them we may do noth- 
ing. If our sloop is on a rock in the-harbor 
which the tide at flood hides, and it hangs 
there at the beginning of the ebb, the 
stranded condition shall be relieved by the 
next flow of the sea. "We may calculate to 
get off in twelve hours, as the law of the 



LESSONS OP THE SEA. 61 

tides is infallible. A steam or motor launch 
may hitch on and draw us off in a few 
moments, if it come our way, but that Is 
chance and not law. On land, we know, 
too, that the farmer who faces the sun 
which brings the day and ripens the har- 
vests, cannot ignore the seasons, four stout 
facts of God, and prosper in his fields, but 
must work in reference to them. Darwin, 
who counted his abilities as moderate, ought 
not to have been surprised that he had 
influenced so much the opinions of scien- 
tists, for in his researches he dealt with 
first-hand facts that had to be accepted at 
the face value. Facts appeal to the mind 
before words to the eye or ear, and the force 
of words is largely in their setting of facts. 
Men may shut the outer senses, refusing 
for the time to admit knowledge of aught; 
but they miss what is, and are poorer for 
it. Also, men observe in a world part of 
which they are. Each forms the center of 
a limited horizon. Vision of a kind ends 
where the sky begins. There is another 



62 LESSONS OF THE SEA. 

which comprehends much in ideal relations, 
and asks for that plus what has been re- 
ported by others. 

The poet Wordsworth deemed nature so 
essential to our spiritual sustenance, that 
he doubted whether people who lived and 
stayed in town had souls. There is, how- 
ever, an invasion of people's dwelling 
places. The lines which God writes run 
over fences and into hearts. Holmes re- 
marked that he knew of nothing sweeter 
than the leaking in of nature through all 
the cracks in the walls and floors of cities. 
The taste that men get usually makes them 
want more, and they go to the sea, to the 
mountains, to the fields and woods, for the 
spirit and life of it, for the beauty and 
truth. 

The Psalmist of Israel, singing unto the 
Lord of his manifold works, which were 
made in wisdom, and of the earth as full 
of his riches, included in the praiseful 
melody "the great and wide sea." We 



LESSONS OF THE SEA. 63 

were taught in our earliest school days that 
it comprises three-fourths or more of the 
earth's surface. Virgil, in the "^neid," 
has spoken of "the roomy sea;" Homer 
before him, in the "Iliad" and "Odyssey," 
of "the broad back of the sea." If these 
waters were only wide wastes, they might 
accuse Providence. But they are not 
wastes. They bear argosies of witnesses 
to the divine and impartial goodness. They 
have in them life, yea, the good of being, 
and minister forever to being above them. 
The sea is salt for a natural reason which 
serves purposes of utility. It is water in 
the ultimate. All streams, small and large, 
flow into it, and none runs out. But the 
sun with golden ladles dips up a share of 
the water and throws it into reservoirs of 
the sky, and it is let down as needed to 
refresh the land, which could not alone 
furnish sufficient moisture to the clouds for 
itself in return, and the sea with an abund- 
ance must befriend it. The saline sub- 
stances which are carried into this stay 



64 LESSONS OF THE SEA. 

since they are not evaporated. In the wide 
basins that lie between continents the salt 
water is of use to the world. At the 
equator, where the sun shines hottest, the 
sea makes its greatest contribution to 
the clouds; near the poles, where coldest, 
the surface water by density sinks. These 
phenomena at the mean and extremes of 
the globe put the waters of the oceans into 
circulation, or act as Titan pulleys around 
which an immense belt moves slowly, slug- 
gishly, irregularly. The warm surface 
water tends to the north in our zones, the 
cold bottom water in the Arctic region to 
the south; thus making the climate north 
and south more tolerable if not equable. 
It is partly the explanation of the Gulf 
Stream which encircles the Gulf of Mexico, 
and passes out and along the southeastern 
coast of North America, and is thence 
started across the Atlantic to the British 
Isles and northern Europe, softening the 
frigid climate of those countries; then, de- 
flected by the land, passing southward to 



LESSONS OF THE SEA. 65 

the northwestern coast of Africa until in 
the tropic of the gulf ; and then again over 
the ocean for another round. The configu- 
ration of the land determines much the 
course of currents, and the continents are 
helped and promoted by their co-operation 
with the laws of the deep. 

Over ocean waters man earliest traveled 
long distances. He built a boat before he 
constructed an ox cart. Before a railroad 
crossed a country, or a car steamed on a 
mile of ground, ships had sailed the seas 
and discovered other lands far away with 
the same heaven bending above them and 
tlie same providence of good on every hand. 
It was fitting that by that which is so 
prevalent on the face of the earth man 
should begin to learn of a globe which, too, 
travels through space, and of his own cos- 
mopolitan nature and power. The waves 
first invited him abroad, and the winds 
thereon first favored him. True, he has 
not had here all smooth sailing. Providence 
did not intend that he should have. There 



66 LESSONS OF THE SEA. 

Avas much to overcome. Ill winds would 
blow. This monster whose wide back was 
so easy to mount, whose waves M^ere so 
pliable and ready to serve, might be lashed 
by the storm into a fury corresponding to 
the bulk of her body, and the weak crafts 
which man in his artlessness placed upon 
her might be rudely shaken off and crushed 
as eggshells against engirting rocks. Here 
was opportunity and incentive for man 
to build strong and to become himself 
stronger; here was something to battle 
against and to conquer; and today there 
are fewer disasters at sea than on land firm 
beneath us. Even plants along the coast, 
absorbing the salt sea air and resisting the 
furious winds that sweep over the floor- 
like surface, grow stout and hardy. Provi- 
dence puts men upon their own metal, their 
own fiber oft, and lets them work out their 
salvation as He wills. 

Nearly or quite every section of the sea 
has life and power. Nutritive gases sink 
Avith the cooling and condensing waters, 



LESSONS OF THE SEA. 67 

and circulate in the farthest depths. AVe 
are told that these depths correspond to the 
mountain heights; that there is watery 
space the reverse of dust and rocky bulk. 
Ocean meadows are in the comparatively 
level bottoms. Evidences of marine life 
have been hooked up from a distance of a 
few miles below. And there, where the 
light of the sun and moon does not pene- 
trate, have been found phosphorescent 
plants and animals by means of which the 
deep places are rendered, in a degree, light. 
Of course, the more abundant life of the 
sea is near the coasts where more nourish- 
ment is available for it, and where, too, is 
the greater utility in the return of values. 
All material values near the homes of men 
assume a commercial aspect. It has been 
declared than an acre of good fishing will 
furnish more food in a week than an acre 
of rich ground will yield in a year. The 
coasts also indulge what is neither useful 
nor beautiful, as man judges. On the 
rocks and sunken posts washed by the 



68 LESSONS OF THE SEA. 

flood-tide are barnacles innumerable. They 
are living creatures, little marine animals, 
opening their tiny mouths and putting out 
their filmy feelers for the dainty morsels 
that come their way, and shutting them- 
selves up in their warty shells, when the 
waters have receded, and looking as much 
like rock or post as they can, with the 
permission of Providence to every living 
thing to be, and to protect itself against 
approaching foes. 

There is a human interest in the sea and 
a wonderful fascination about it since 
man's vessels have ploughed it and have 
left no track behind. Nature is conquered, 
and yet forever unconquered. We can cut 
a path across our neighbor's lawn to his 
discomfort; the sea closes all our wounds 
as quickly as we make them. She is the 
ever youthful bride to our art. The ships 
sail and steam on the generous expanse 
with a grace that they borrow from it. 
Their size hath majesty here. Rufus 
Choate, in his last days, watched the ships 



LESSONS OF THE SEA. 69 

which sailed in sight of his windows at 
Halifax. Awhile before death, he said to 
the attendant, as he was about to go to 
sleep, "If a schooner or sloop goes by, 
don 't disturb me ; but if there is a square- 
rigged vessel, wake me." 

The beauty is apparitional rather than 
real. "We may draw delights here from 
semblances. The waves wear jewels to 
sight at times. I have seen the water 
purple under a fair sky, and have beheld 
in it a great, greenish blue spot, like a 
rich and rare turquoise set in the sea. In a 
return sail from Plymouth to Boston, on 
a cloudy day several summers ago, we saw 
dropped upon the ocean a bar of gold 
through a rift in the clouds. The sun was 
not visible, but we knew whence came the 
huge bright bar athwart the waves. 
Quickly were sent rays of light as smiths to 
hammer out and spread the gold into a 
vast plate; and then, as if to assure us of 
his munificence, the sun let fall a large 
column, and tempted us by ranging it 



70 LESSONS OP THE SEA. 

toward us. A broader radiance Keats 
pictured with his camera-like pen — 

"From the horizon's vaulted side, 
There shot a golden splendor far and wide. 
Spangling those million poutings of the brine 
With quivering ore." 

In all its moods, there is a permanence 
or changelessness of the sea. The land 
where man sets his home wears away, and 
the face of it is altered sometimes beyond 
recognition, while that on which man can- 
not build, that which hath no solidity of 
substance, remains the same through all 
the centuries of the earth, and is the deep 
mirror of the Eternal. That rim, where 
water and sky meet, appears forever sta- 
tionary. Boats glide over it, and clouds 
dissolve above. The tides only raise and 
lower it by a mathematical rule, giving 
further ' ' a hint of that which changes not. ' ' 
The free, fluent billows are on an unvarying 
plane of law, and keep the decree of the 
Eternal. 

The sea is finally to our faith a perfect 
symbol of the beyond of death. Past its 



LESSONS OF THE SEA. 71 

horizon, that marks the farthest bounds of 
our sight unhindered, there is an extension 
of it not seen, yet of which we are sure. 
In one of Dickens's books Florence and 
Paul, you may remember, are by the sea. 
Their mother had died. The health of the 
boy was uncertain, and his sister had come 
with him to the beach for possible benefits 
to him. But there was to the child a 
mysterious something in the waves whose 
incessant voices broke upon his ear, and he 
inquired as to what place might be beyond 
them. "She told him that there was an- 
other country opposite, but he said he 
didn't mean that; he meant farther away 
— farther away ! ' ' After the death of Paul, 
"the voices in the waves were always 
whispering to Florence, in their ceaseless 
murmuring, of love — of love, eternal and 
illimitable, not bounded by the confines of 
this world, or by the end of time, but rang- 
ing still, beyond the sea, beyond the sky, 
to the invisible country far away. ' ' 



MESSAGE OF THE MOUNTAINS. 

A mountain height communicates with 
many kindred. Yonder on it we may be- 
hold the horizon billowy with summits, as 
if a mighty wind had moved over a chaos 
of mud and rocks, and rolled up those 
gigantic waves; each swelling summit 
would seem to mark an opposition to the 
power that pushed them into being, as 
the waves of the sea are a temporary record 
of the sea's resistance to the wind which 
blows and ceases. But the mountains are 
really made from beneath. They are not 
evidences of whimsical stubbornness, but 
of power manifested through them and 
represented in them. There we are re- 
minded of God in the earth and under 
the ground, and not only above the world 
or in the sky; of the divine in men, since 
we are here ensphered, and, after Paul, 
live and move and have our being in God. 



MESSAGE OF THE MOUNTAINS. 73 

We had been told that the mountain ranges 
are as "cicatrized wounds in the earth's 
solid crust," that they appear where there 
were lines of weakness and the volcanic 
forces beneath might make most I'eadily 
fissures in the surface, while the materials 
were ages accumulating and forming and 
solidifjdng. That is, each strong and mas- 
sive brow marks a spot where the earth was 
once weak. Listening closest to the ground, 
we hear a message of the strength of 
humility. Every elevation which stands 
now in a majesty or dignity its own, yet 
derived, is the greater because of its early 
susceptibility to embody and express what 
is superior. 

Likewise the frailty of man is opportun- 
ity for the wisdom and goodness and great- 
ness of God. In the divine order he that 
esteems himself sufficient, should take heed 
lest he fall; he that accounts himself wise, 
should beware lest those he despises ascend 
several degrees higher in the scale' of real 
knowledge and merit. No man is strong 



74 MESSAGE OF THE MOUNTAINS. 

and great in himself alone. There is only 
one strong, or great, or good, in all the 
universe, and that is God. JMen attain by 
humility, by obedience to the divine laws. 
The apostle said, let him that would be 
wise become a fool. Jesus chose lowly 
fishermen for his first disciples, rather 
than the scribes and priests, and made 
sturdy and unwavering witnesses by filling 
those that were empty of their own esteem 
with the inspiration of his truth and the 
power of his character. Shakespeare 
learned of the tiniest creature or thing. 
He could not have become, without that 
docility, Shakespeare, gathering up into 
the richness of a master mind about all that 
the world had to impart to any. Man's 
pride is his ultimate weakne«ss ; his humility, 
his ultimate strength. And as the hills 
were long in forming, so a character is 
long in the making; and humility, with 
patience, should be a persistent quality. 
St. Paul in his manhood saying, ''Not as 
though I had already attained, but I follow 



MESSAGE OF THE MOUNTAINS. 75 

after, if I may apprehend that for which 
also I am apprehended of Jesus Christ," 
was ascending to where "the crown of 
righteousness ' ' should encircle his head and 
heart alike. 

It is not by chance that the ranges and 
peaks are lifted over the land. The place 
of each is divinely predetermined, and it 
serves there. What should men do without 
them where they are ! The ' ' nursery of 
rills, ' ' they give both impulse and direction 
to the water courses which serve m disciple- 
ship, and about whose banks companies of 
men build factories and cities. Storms are 
tamed, and play down the slanting sides 
with a reverberant voice of joy, bringing 
gifts to the lowlands which are clothed with 
more verdure and helped to ampler fruit- 
age. Traveling by a river in the West some 
years ago, I observed on the other side a 
fair sized stream emptying into the larger. 
The bottoms were quite extensive ; the hills 
which always overlook them were standing 
far back. I questioned why a creek should 



76 MESSAGE OF THE MOUNTALNS. 

flow there into the waters of the Ohio, and 
the answer came in reflection, 'Because of 
farther sturdy hills that dwelt together and 
had born unto them a child, the valley; 
whence the way of the little stream, to purl 
with its tumblings, to gain breadth and 
depth by the befriending of rain and rill, 
and to offer at length refreshment and 
benefit to fields and farms, ere it passed 
into the major tributary of the unseen 
deeps, advised and directed through the 
plain by those guides which were finally 
so potent.' And I thought of home and 
its formative influences upon youth taking 
forward a deepening life and a strengthen- 
ing arm for work of some sort; of the 
church which stands and asks that the 
homes may send the children well toward 
it, and that parents should come in sight 
of it, and to it, before and with them as 
sentinels or exemplars. In those abiding 
places the world is furnished; by those 
highlands hearts are nurtured in love and 
faith and hope. 



MESSAGE OF THE MOUNTAINS. 77 

The mountain that came in legend to the 
prophet held a truth for the generations of 
the eminent ones which are ever coming in 
substance to men, while men are going to 
them for what they give in verity and to 
view; and far from the dwellings of men, 
they are not rich toward their Maker nor 
his creatures. Some are bald observatories, 
commanding only the grandeur of the 
landscape. Their heights are inaccessible 
to purposes of commerce. The soil on them 
does not turn into the delicious juices and 
flavors of fruits and vegetables. I w^ent 
to a near mountain in a midsummer, find- 
ing blueberries and huckleberries abundant 
by the road where many others had passed 
and in previous years had gathered the ripe 
fruit. That year's yield was more because 
of it, and those berries waiting for me 
seemed SAveeter. At the top of the high 
ridge unfrequented, the bushes were barren 
of about everything excepting leaves. They 
lived and breathed there through these, but 
bore nothing for others, maybe, because 



78 MESSAGE OP THE MOUNTAINS. 

they had not been asked to do so. The 
apple trees which grow wild in the pastures 
and on the hillsides, and cast off what is 
worthless, might produce good fruit if they 
were ploughed about and picked in season. 
So man is taught sufficiency largely by 
doing, with a heart close to his fellows. 
Demand determines productivity, and the 
generous worker may find a wealth of 
natural forces proceeding with him for use. 
Again, remote from the habitations 
of men, there is an almost deathlike still- 
ness without the sounds that come, now 
and then, from the valley. Chanticleer 
sends up his boasting tones from a barn- 
yard, and fancies in his little lot that he is 
the greatest creature on earth. But the 
birds do not sing for you. Down several 
rods, amid the thick branches of the trees, 
you may catch some short notes of com- 
plaining; there is a brief quarrel in the 
forest aviary. The cheerful and sweet 
songs that greet our ears in the fields near 
men's homes, you shall not likely hear. I 



MESSAGE OF THE MOUNTAINS. 79 

had read after Burroughs that birds would 
not sing much where they might not be 
heard and appreciated; that far from 
human haunts the feathery songsters are 
comparatively silent. The naturalist had 
written truly. Appreciation among men, 
too, invites and encourages the espressional 
nature, and may signal merit. This we 
learn from the mountain with an ear 
toward the land that lies broadly beyond 
its base. 

But up the rugged slopes grow the 
grasses and the ferns ; over the rocks climb 
and rest the lichens and the mosses ; around 
the trees ' shadows, drawn by the sun 's rays, 
run the flowers in many curves of beauty; 
from stem to stem of bushes the spider 
spins its delicate web, and nestles fat and 
flne at the center of its hangmg palace, 
which the wind, blowing fairly against it, 
might waft away, but is there secure, until 
beast or man, in passing, by chance strikes 
and destroys. The gentleness of strong 
natures is suggested. There are numbers 



80 MESSAGE OP THE MOUNTAINS. 

who hold it at the heart from which the 
body gets a poise. Sweetness proceeds from 
strength rather than from debility. Supe- 
rior power of body can be the truest servant 
of the will for the heroic deed that must 
be gently done. The story of Scott brings 
Ivanhoe, at a point, to a castle where, shut 
in wounded and ill, he was tended by a 
Jewess. Fire broke in the building. The 
weak woman could not have removed the 
helpless invalid, and by her endeavor 
should have caused him to suffer much. 
The knight with a sinewy arm entered, 
and easefully, without a jerk or a twinge, 
bore him to the postern and to the care 
of yeomen. We know that Christ who was 
the strongest in the principles and sense of 
righteousness, and hurled deserved invec- 
tives against the arrogant Pharisees, was 
the tenderest toward the harshly judged 
and penitent sinner. The thick, stout oak 
assures the slender, feeble vine cf welcome 
in its aspiration for the boughs above, and 



MESSAGE OF THE MOUNTAINS. 81 

stalwart men should be supports to frail 
and needy ones. 

The mountains do not advise us to ba 
positive in our opinions, but integral and 
strenuous in our realizations and convic- 
tions of truth. The realm of opinion is 
something like that of the simoom in the 
desert; it is, at best, airy, speculative, un- 
substantial. We may misapprehend many 
things that lie outside of us. Be moderate 
about those and open to correction. The 
air may be clearer tomorrow than it is 
today, and we may see better. The crouch- 
ing of prejudice, or of ill hamor, will 
prevent a fair view of w^liat has in it the 
grace of consistency and the virtue of mag- 
nanimity. There are matters of experience 
and life. We need not guess at them; we 
may know them ; and with their enactments 
character is empowered for deed of good. 
As among neighborly slopes, we may be 
happily conscious of their firm foundations. 
Our thought rests on the stability of the 
hills "from whence cometh our help." 



82 MESSAGE OF THE MOUNTAINS. 

They shall not fail us. Earthquakes re- 
spect their massiveness, and are not wont 
to break rudely through them. The bulky 
monitors usually say to such tremors, 
"Thus far, and no farther." They shall 
always attend the lowland and minister 
to it. Far away, they are mantled with a 
mist of blue, and they seem kindred to the 
sky that changes not back of cloud and 
storm, but looks ever and again in serenity 
upon the rolling earth. They retain their 
shape before us, and if the earth struggles 
in space, revolving upon its axis and trav- 
ersing yearly its orbit around the sun, these 
are not tramps on its surface, sleeping 
yonder for a night, and moving hence at 
the morning, and leaving not a name nor a 
memory. No; they are stable. The Al- 
mighty and Everlasting has marked them 
His. They stand forever in their places in 
staid relation to every tract about them. 

Mankind lacks mountain characters. 
That is, we have not enough of them. The 
level is too much beside the level, society 



MESSAGE OF THE MOUNTAINS. 83 

with society of its rank; the winds of 

sensation sweep easily over us, and we are 

swayed to and fro. AVhile the mountain 

does not bend to the breeze, the comparable 

character is to be relied upon in his or 

her place. 

"Lift me, Oh Lord, above the level plain, 

Beyond the cities where life throbs and thrills. 
And in the cool airs let my spirit gain 

The stable strength and courage of thy hills. 

"They are thy secret dwelling places. Lord ! 
Like thy majestic prophets, old and hoar. 
They stand assembled in divine accord. 
Thy sign of 'stablished power forevermore. 

"Here peace finds refuge from ignoble wars, 
And faith, triumphant, builds in snow and rime, 
Near the broad highways of the greater stars, 
Above the tide-line of the seas of time. 

"Lead me yet further, Lord, to peaks more clear, 

Until the clouds like shiny meadows lie. 
Where through the deeps of silence I may hear 
The thunder of thy legions marching bv." 



PARABLES OF THE PLANTS. 

Next to God abide the plants. These 
were before beast or man could subsist. 
They are not vagabonds on the earth, 
but are rooted in their country. They 
are the primal patriots, the pioneer citi- 
zens, the early and indefatigable busi- 
ness adventurers which prosper commun- 
ities. In vegetation are the factories of the 
Almighty, where are made the life-stuffs 
for man and animal. The sun's heat moves 
the machinery. Earth and air and water 
are the crude supplies which are taken 
through the mills. Dead, inert matter is 
turned into things of life, beauty, and use, 
and the workmen are identified with the 
wheels and pulleys. Plants have an exclu- 
sive and enduring patent on protoplasm, 
the physical basis of all life. For that 
reason they are the original and perpetual 
producers ; the animal is the consumer. 



PARABLES OF THE PLANTS. 85 

Tliey build; the animal destroys. Man, 
disciple of the plant, produces and builds; 
man, follower of the animal, consumes and 
destroys. 

Trees, shrubs, grasses, and lilies trust 
Providence and do their duty. We may 
not see them toil or spin as men, yet are 
they arrayed after their aspiration and 
merit. At the call of the sun they wake 
to realize the possibilities that lie in their 
hearts and on the friendly verge of soil 
and air surrounding them. Here is organic 
life modeled in the sufficiency of each day. 
What comes by the path of moments is 
enough. AVhat is used of the near does not 
leave a doubt as to the kindred blessing 
which enters every territory of want. 
There are no tracks needed to guide what 
is generous in nature. Openness to it wall 
bring it. Plants simply meet Providence 
on his ample grounds, and live by a sweet 
responsiveness, while their life is imparted, 
and the world teems with it. As organic 
shapes, they form a stairway up which a 



86 PARABLES OP THE PLANTS. 

living potency climbs back toward God, 
and, resting in his child, may start again 
to climb, taught and empowered by the 
living myriads. 

A plant attains by growth, and thus 
occupies its place and fulfills the demand 
upon it. God cares for seeds and bushes 
because He cares for trees and fruits. 
Little things are ancestors to the great. 
Growth is the process of generation. 
'Thou shalt grow unto greatness' is the 
fiat of Omnipotence. All that a plant 
would remember should be turned into a 
hope. A tree retains last year's timber to 
add that of another year. What corre- 
sponds to memory merely would take the 
currents toward the earth, or move inward 
or backward upon tliat which has been, 
burdening unto death. Life pulses against 
thin casements; it pierces through the sur- 
face, and appears everywhere with the 
power of change, of expansion. It is not, 
therefore, reminiscent in its chief instincts 
or inclination. An autobiography is writ- 



PARABLES OF THE PLANTS. 87 

ten with a thought of closing one's career. 
Plants live to live. The history of a pre- 
ceding generation is held to emulate and to 
improve upon. We see within the charmed 
circle man amid the little with promise ; 
man facing the large with hope; man not 
contenting himself with less than the best 
of which he is capable, and ever looking 
ahead to better than the good; man re- 
membering, that he may hope and be more ; 
man trying not to make a record, but to live 
a life in itself worth while. 

The coming of the blade, then the ear, 
and after that the full corn in the ear, 
is with the strengthening stalk. The stages 
of development are preparatory one for 
another, and from fundamentals there is 
never a departure. The stem stays while 
the flower blows or the fruit ripens. Incite- 
ments to growth are felt from the lower to 
the upper extremities. The plant must be 
in its place; the soil must feed it; the 
roots must spread with the enlargement of 
the stem or trunk, and the lifting of the 



88 PARABLES OF THE PLANTS. 

branches to the air. And man can never 
safely depart from basic principles. He 
must feel them ever at his feet. Their 
virtue must rise to his heart and head. The 
higher he ascends in life and usefulness, 
the broader must he become in his sympa- 
thies and loves which lay hold of the world 
substances. He can't build his life to God 
except it be grounded on good will to all 
men. He must found prophecy upon a 
fact. He may declare what will be done 
in the Christian rule by what he is dis- 
posed to do as a Christian disciple. 

While the virtue of the soil comes 
through the roots, and is sent to all parts 
by an impartial law, the growth upward is 
directly from above. That is, a plant grows 
at the top, and not at the bottom: there 
is expansion only below: the part rises 
which is already above. Jesus expressed 
this of man in that Christian epigram, "To 
him that hath shall be given." Thus, 
whereunto any attains becomes, in a way, 
the basis of future attainment. There are 



PARABLES OF THE PLANTS. 89 

no other grounds of progress than those 
of reality, of steps taken, of power gained, 
of deeds done. Would a man be wise ? He 
must get wisdom. Would he be very good ? 
He must be and do good by the wayside. 
Would he know heaven or its happiness? 
He must have the character for whose deeds 
the plaudit is heard, "Well done." 

Growth, again, is not so much a matter 
of time as of warmth and nurture. The 
seasons should not be opportunity without 
the positive conditions which they bring 
and grant. The botanist says that a plant 
will grow as much in a week of high temper- 
ature as it might in a whole summer 
wherein simply the sum of that week's 
temperature were distributed through the 
entire season. It requires a certain amount 
of warmth to develop it, and that which 
would be a spring bloomer in one climate 
might be an autumn bloomer in another, 
because it would get the same quantity of 
sunshine in a month in one locality as in 
six months in another. Time is a sort of 



90 PARABLES OP THE PLANTS. 

measure of the factors essential to the 
maturing of plant life, which responds to 
the conditions present in sunshine and rain, 
soil and air. So the soul of man grows not 
by years, but by love and truth and expe- 
rienced good. When we take this nourish- 
ment, we wax spiritually. AVithout it, we 
lapse and fail. 

"We must not overlook or forget that the 
impulse of all growth is within. If the 
center of the tree be sound, the circumfer- 
ence shall enlarge, the top shall heighten. 
And a proverb advises, "Keep thy heart 
with all diligence; for out of it are the 
issues of life." Fruit growers have found 
that a young tree will thrive better when 
the roots are trimmed as well as the 
branches for replanting; without surplus 
roots and limbs, it will develop more below 
and above in a season than one that has 
many at the beginning. The reason is, the 
law of life is effective within. And the 
parts are superior that come from the in- 
herent forces. Reform in life, as growth, 



PARABLES OF THE PLANTS. 91 

will result from lopping off excresences, 
and utilizing native energy in approved 
directions. 

Trees get great strength where there is 
much stress. One that is supported by wall 
or any object, will lack what another will 
have standing alone with exposure to sun 
and wind. The vine remains weak by the 
help of the trellis. Denial at one point may 
quicken a healthy scion of nature to gain 
more at another. Good is normal, and is 
the rightful possession of the seeker of its 
abundance in open fields. Man, too, has 
a right to it. There is much for him where 
he will go with the spirit of a pioneer. An 
impoverishment in the track of others may 
be a suggestion of plenty not far. Oppor- 
tunity may be only self-postponed; it is 
where the majorities may not have arrived 
in thought or discernment, and the indi- 
vidual, in the midst of thousands, can set 
a free foot with broad margins about it. 
Search the spaces around thee for power ; 
take not for thy undue use what is any 



"92 PARABLES OF THE PLANTS. 

man's; push away the props; depend upon 
thyself, upon the law God hath writ in thy 
nature ; decipher it, read it in his light, and 
carry it as a charter of freedom to act out 
thy life. 

The plants refuse not to serve, nor to 
teach service, for in the divine purpose the 
world is full of this, but of whose spirit 
man sometimes fails. They render the 
atmosphere fit for animals and men to 
breathe by taking from it that which is 
poisonous to our lungs, and they seem to 
bear an intention of the sustenance which 
it! furnished by them for all other creatures. 
If seeds, or grains, constituting a great 
bulk of our food supply, were solely for 
the perpetuating of their generations, they 
should have been bitter, distasteful; but 
they are savory; when not thus, they are 
lodged in luscious fruits. Since only one 
seed is necessary to produce the stalk that 
shall bring forth its like, and hundreds and 
thousands, may be, are borne by it, what are 
they for, if not to bless others? They are 



PARABLES OF THE PLANTS. 93^ 

the substances of love in which plants cul- 
minate. The flowers which have beauty 
resulting from what they refrain to absorb 
of the sun 's colors, and thus reflect or give, 
are also sweet and agreeable, telling of the 
forces at work to make fruits and seeds. 
These are among the upper things which 
exist to serve. A man after the heart of 
God revealed in that living world closest 
to Him, is "like a tree planted by the rivers 
of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in 
his season. ' ' 

With our final teachers, we learn that 
where much is given, not only shall much 
be required, but much should be in desire 
to do for dependent or related life. 
Eeserves of energy in seeds are imparted 
to sprouting stalks. The expansion and 
strength of trunks of trees are for holding 
the many limbs and twigs, and uprightness 
is preserved that height may be adequate 
for the amplitude of foliage in the air. 
On a lawn in northern Kentucky stood a 
young spruce from which the central shoot 



94 PARAJBLES OF THE PLANTS. 

had been broken out by a boy to put in the 
graceful hollow of the remaining tender 
and topmost branches a bird's nest which 
he had found in some out-of-the-way local- 
ity. I visited the place many times at 
somewhat distant intervals, and it was 
interesting to watch the recovering fortune 
of that particular tree; to see how two 
branches toward the south rivaled each 
other in seeking the central point to guide 
it upward. Thos? that aspired to take the 
most responsible part of the ascending life 
of the forest scion had been most favored 
by the sun, and, what was to be expected, 
the stronger of the two came to the highest 
task, the other becoming as any to the side ; 
and when I last saw the tree several years 
after, it could not have been perceived that 
it was ever bereft, so valiantly had the 
higher boughs done their fitting duty. He 
who is blessed of God, and is strong, should 
not shirk, should not flee responsibility, 
but should go up like a bough, and like a 
man, to take the leading or other part 



PARABLES OF THE PLANTS. 95 

that seems to be rightly assigned to him 
for the benefit of his kind, that the tree 
of humanity may be carried up erect to the 
perfectness for which it was ordained. 



DEC 30 1I90S 



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